His traps could be bigger.

Monthly Archives: May 2011

Would you say that front squatting would:
A. Improve low bar back squat
B. No change
C. Decrease low bar back squat
D. All of the above

Please fully circle your answer with a No. 2 pencil.

I’d prob guess B, though training the front squat with the low-bar back squat means less time training the low-bar back squat overall so slower progress on the back squat might be a long-term result.

I rolled on my IT bands for the first time a few days ago, with a lacrosse ball, was pretty awful. Did the best shoulder mob ever, which I found has significant benefits when I do it before benching, so it’ll be a regular on the nights before I bench (I’ve been neglecting it). Uhh rhomboids and external rotators were real sore after touch-and-go deads and bent-over bb rows, so did quite a bit of soft tissue work there, standard couch/table-top stretch as well, and also anterior deltoid soft tissue stuff. Last night I also hit up an IR stretch for my right shoulder, the discrepancy in internal rotation between my shoulders is slowly decreasing which means my snatch (and prob a few other things) should be getting even better.

Today was a little better. I started off by power snatching 195lbs and squat snatching it, was hoping for a power snatch double but I’ll take this as well. Snatched 205lbs for an easy single after.

Power clean + squat clean + jerk 245lbs, this was as high as I got, felt heavy.

Double overhand no hook deads, 330lbs x 6.

I superset that with close-grip bench, hit 215lbs x 8 and 7 for a PR. Yes, this was the day after benching. No, I don’t give a fucking shit if it was a bad decision. I wanted to close-grip bench yesterday after squatting but time wouldn’t allow. Also, I needed to do well on some kind of press after yesterday, or I would have been upset until next bench day. Something to think about is that there are numerous programs i.e. Sheiko, Smolov, that involve benching and/or squatting 4+ times a week (Sheiko, which is actually mega fucking legit since it’s the official training program of the Russian national powerlifting team, is actually like 5-7 i think … if I just liked powerlifting I’d prob be doing Sheiko).

FYI, my training schedule is going to become a little more intuitive for a bit. Work schedule will be a confounding factor in regularity, though I will still follow a basic order (i.e. volume squat/press, light pull, intensity squat/press, heavy pull). Mainly the biggest difference is I may be pressing on different days than I squat.

Justin, this is a good thread. Msingh talks about you. Basically he doesn’t train (he lifts, but he is a real virgin newbie about it) and thinks that because he sucks, everyone else sucks too. Guy could not be more self-victimizing. Msingh is the epitome of the guy who is too busy talking about training on the internet instead of actually training.

Fyi – last time I snatched 235lbs, which happened once, was when I was walking around at 180lbs bw, was 164lbs in this vid. I felt pretty crisp today, smoked 205lbs, 215lbs, and threw 225lbs behind me, but it felt like a fucking joke so I figured 235lbs was gonna happen. Also, I don’t fucking give a shit.

Also power cleaned 255lbs, followed by a squat clean and a jerk. Clean and jerked 275lbs after this. I’d have gotten video of this, but since it wasn’t really a PR, I didn’t think it was worth getting on film.

That was about it for the important stuff. Did some barbell rows after, 175lbs x 6 for 4 sets, then some barbell curls and weighted back extensions.

Happy that I hit 235lbs, makes it even cooler for me that it was without bumpers.

Did quite a bit of mobbing before this workout, couch stretch and table top stretch last night, did some soft tissue work on anterior shoulder today, followed by rolling on external rotators, and then a little overhead external rotation (band elbows together, wide supinated grip on pull up bar, load and maintain neutral spine).

Food was a chipotle burrito with barbacoa, rice, onions and peppers, then a little later some ribs, a peach, 50/50 pro/waxy maize shake.

Did some mobility I can’t recall, but I did do a lot of soft tissue work to the anterior shoulder before benching.

Benched 245lbs x 4, 3, paused, was attempting a second set of 4 but stalled on the way up … I thought it was going to go at the time, roommate felt that it was going to come back down so gave upwards pressure. Bar was drifting towards my head, i.e. my elbows were flaring towards the top, he interpreted that as losing control of the bar + press was failing. I dunno. I’d say 40/60 it was gonna go at this point, I just felt like the bar had slowed by a lot but was still inching up. However, I don’t want to sound like a fucking typical wannabe powerlifters who makes excuses for missing reps so fuck it.

Front squat 335lbs x 4, 320lbs x 5, 4. Kind of an improvement. Felt pretty good up to rep 3, 4 was a grinder, 5 never got out of the hole.

Did some close-grip benching after this, 215lbs x 6, then 215lbs x 5, which felt pretty good, but I should prob shoot for more reps here.

Not sure how I’m going to program my fucking press with all this shit, I want to do some close-grip benching pretty regularly because I want to improve my lockout and I want bigger tris.

Guy was warming up on his bench from bar, 135, 225, 275, 315 <– out of everyone else in the gym, he walks across the free weight area to me and asks for a spot. Sad affair when the person who seems most reliable to spot you for your bench is a fuck head Asian wannabe. Beginning at 225 he was driving his belly up towards the bar to shorten his stroke – not just merely his ass coming off his bench but deliberately thrusting his entire torso up to meet the bar. He spoke little English, and what English he did speak "excuse me can you give me a spot" was heavily accented, Eastern European, which should have meant he benched with at least loose adherence to IPF standards but I guess he never got the memo. Was wearing a 13mm belt from EFS or Inzer and those typical wrist wraps that powerlifters don when benching.

Douche frat guy asked me if my back hurt after I racked my last set of front squats. I said nah man I'm good. He said you sure bro that shit was bouncing on your shoulders. I said you get used to it dude, not a big deal. He said damn that's crazy. I said roger that, HONEY BADGER OUT.

Hit suprapatellar tack-and-stretch yesterday, lots of work on external rotators and scap soft tissue, and did shoulder IR stretching today.

Ribs, 3 eggs, 4 strips of bacon, a sweet potato, and a pro/waxy maize shake pre-workout today. Also, I was off from work, so everything was scheduled pretty leisurely.

Power snatched 190lbs x 3 for a slight PR, went on to snatch 225lbs. Again, this was at the globo gym. Felt pretty decent here. My best power snatch ever is 90k/198lbs for a double, I’m fairly certain I can surpass this reasonably soon. I also think power snatching 100k or 225lbs for more than one rep would be pretty cool. Also, now that I’m working on internal rotation for the right shoulder again, it’s very probable that I may make a fucking PR with the snatch without using bumpers.

Oh, roommate and his girlfriend are having sex, fyi, I’d punch my roommate’s girlfriend in the face if it were morally acceptable. She’s a typical hipster fuck face, just tries too hard imo, whines like a 12 year old when she’s 20, every other word out of her mouth is “baby,” she reads out loud to him in a really haha-pretentious reading voice that I actually don’t think is fucking funny at all, hyper-clingy, she’s always at the apartment, doesn’t have a life, when she’s not with him she sits at her apartment texting or calling him and just fucking sucks as a human being imo, she’s vegetarian, thinks meat is gross, thinks she’s fat when she’s not, really dumb and what makes that fact even more infuriating is my roommate doesn’t think she is dumb but she’s a fucking psychology major FYI 20 year old “psychology major” automatically means fucking dead beat wannabe intellectual, fucking get fucked dude. Her name is “Asia.” I’m fucking done.

No, I got more, something that fucking annoyed the shit out of me is she was using the oven to make her fucking vegetarian, fuck, I don’t know what they were, but she fucking put these organic rice cake things into a pan and topped them with like pesto or something I don’t know but it was definitely a fucking useless thing to eat and she was gingerly adjusting the topping onto the rice cake with her fingers, just everything about this made me want to fucking puke it was just too fucking pathetic, just the fact that she thought she was eating in a good way was sickening.

Cleaned 255lbs for a double and jerked it. Jerks felt pretty good tonight. I was going for a power clean on the first rep but that didn’t happen. Prob gonna try this again in a few days. 255lbs x 2 on the squat clean was a fucking joke though, not that that’s a big deal, but I’m fairly certain I’ll be able to make a PR squat clean double pretty soon.

Push pressed 200lbs x 5, 5 was a pretty terrible rep and the lockout took uncountable seconds to complete. Think I’ll be doing these a bit more, when I did them regularly, i.e. 1-2x a week, it drove my jerk up quite a bit. I haven’t done them for a while since I’ve focused more on benching and pressing the past year or two, but I’m experimenting with greater frequency at the moment so we’ll see where this takes us.

Deadlifted 330lbs x 6 double overhand no hook grip, these were unreasonably hard for the grip, especially compared to 325lbs x 6 last week. I may stay at 330lbs next week and try to focus on holding at the top at the end of the set.

Did some quick machine rows, at home I knocked out 20 chin ups touch-and-go for a rep PR, followed by 15 and then 10, finished up with curls.

Second, I’m fairly certain that that’s not the real Msingh commenting on my posts. Also, if you are wanting to “learn” anything from reading my blog, it’s that 1.) steroids are cool 2.) all other lessons are irrelevant.

Loosely related, and Justin already knows about this, but I regularly ask a doctor that I work with to rx. me testosterone. This is also the same doctor who approves of me responding to his verbal instructions with “wilco.”

I made two 10oz ribeyes and 5lbs of pork ribs last night, that was a pretty good decision imo.

I squat 365lbs x 8, 5, and 1 high-bar yesterday (Wednesday) – I wasn’t expecting to train yesterday but got to clock out for a 1 hour break last night at work and my first instinct was to squat. Traffic kind of cut into my gym time, i.e. I did this in 25mins, but I’ll take it for now, I might up the volume next squat workout as opposed to doing 3×5 front squats.

I sucked fucking shit benching today (Thursday), 225lbs x 6, 5, and 3, I suspect that I didn’t have enough to eat before training (two ribs and a sweet potato and a protein shake – it would have been smarter for me to add at least 3 eggs to that and some more carbs). I think I’ll repeat this workout along with the volume squat on Sunday and kill shit. I was also benching without a spot this workout, which may have contributed to my poor performance. The only guy available to give me a spot was a ranga motherfucker who was making the biggest fucking deal out of his partial bench reps at 135, 225, 275, 285, and 295lbs, and I just could not bring myself to ask this fuck head for a spot

Been doing a lot of mobbing, and trying to add some new things to my repertoire. Hit suprapatellar tack-and-stretch tonight <– which felt like a 10/10 pain scale the first night I did them, may have been because my quads were cramping though, and pulling the scapula off the rib cage with humerus in external rotation, in addition to my regular drills.

Anyways fuck my life, there is a 25 year old lady who has two kids that texts me periodically and asks to hang out, i.e. tonight she asked if there were any places to get drinks in Plano (where I live). She is cute and probably bangable but our personalities would clash i.e. I don't see her being exceptionally nice or laid back in a relationship which is kind of a requisite for me. So I keep giving her a pretty honest answer, hey man I don't drink, I just lift weights lol. Is this really what my life is about? Turning down what could probably be non-committal sex and lifting weights while wishing I could just swallow dbol twice a day? Should I just fucking kill myself now?

My parents keep pressuring me to go to a Korean church (Christian, of course, and most Christian Koreans in Texas are fucking Baptist) to pick up a docile Korean American chick.

On Friday I drove out to Arlington and loaded the fuck up on calories. Only did couch stretch + table top stretch the night before, got lazy with upper body mob. But I made some ribs in the slow cooker (didn’t turn out that great, texture was excellent but didn’t really make a good sauce), had those with a sweet potato, then a four egg omelette with a tomato and four strips of bacon, then a 50g pro/50g waxy maize shake, then some fried chicken strips and fries and gravy (drive took 2.5hrs due to traffic, stopped to eat), so was pretty set as far as calories and carbs.

Benched 245lbs x 4, 3 paused, could have done better here, but in terms of overall progress this week I haven’t done terribly (PRed on 225lbs AMRAP on Tues and still had kind of a volume PR on this day).

Snatched up to 210lbs after this. <– this was pretty intuitive training, my training partner was deadlifting and I didn't want to be sitting around doing nothing so I figured I'd just do some snatches and see how I felt. Turns out I felt reasonably good despite the previous work I'd done.

Overall it wasn't a terrible training day, if I had gotten 5 @ 245lbs bench it would have been excellent.

Was going to dead on Saturday but woke up too late for the gym and had to get to work, so I trained today. Did a lot of mob between then and today, including double lacrosse ball to t-spine, lots of tack and stretch to the anterior deltoid, couch stretch + tabletop stretch, scap soft tissue work.

Power snatched 190lbs x 2, which was all right, then snatched 215lbs. Confidence is coming back, was having some trouble a while back due to the shoulder strain, internal rotation was lacking, was afraid to attempt heavier weights (without bumpers at least) because I didn't know if I'd be able to save/stand with them, but I feel pretty solid now.

Power clean + squat clean + jerk up to 250lbs. Fairly solid power clean here, should be good for 255lbs next week and I'd like to attempt 265lbs for a power clean pretty soon. Would be a good pull for me.

Halted deadlifts (+ completing after the halt), 395lbs x 5 double overhand hook grip for a grip PR and halted dead PR. Did a back off set at 365lbs x 5, felt all right here, but 395lbs x 5 was fucking hard at 5. Wasn't sure 5 would even go, but I broke it off the floor, ground it to the knees, held it for a short breath and finished. I fucking hate sucking at deadlift.

Something that I’ve mentioned before is the tabletop stretch (biasing external rotation + hip flexion) helped a fucking lot with my squatting and pulling. Early on I noticed that it felt like I was using more hamstring/hip musculature when I had first started doing that particular stretch, and tonight I noticed that by cueing “knees out,” “pushing through outsides of feet,” etc. that I could reinforce the use of that extra musculature even more.

I was alternating hitting close-grip bench and deadlifts tonight due to time, and I got in two sets at 205lbs for 7 and 5.

Finished up with rounded-back weighted back extensions, 90lbs for 20 reps, good pump here.

Had some good training this weekend, I need to get some upper back work and curls in and if I don't do those tonight I'll get them done tomorrow after work.
[spoiler effect=”simple” show=”A pretty fucking sweet dream I had.” hide=”That’s all I got. “]i was stuck in some kind of mall/plaza with a friend, and a predator was stalking us

everytime we'd come out of cover in the mall, he'd start shooting us with his shoulder cannon or give chase with his wrist blades, was pretty scary shit, so we had to hide in different stores and run from cover to cover and it was like this fucking predator was hot on our tails no matter what we did

there were other people in the mall, i can't explain why they weren't freaking the fuck out whenever the predator made an appearance

so anyways we manage to almost make it out of the mall/plaza and we come to this U junction at the exit that led to two different parking garages

there were these two cops on the left junction, so we were like "oh man this is our chance, we can use the cops as a distraction" so we break from cover, the predator opens fire, and the cops open fire on the predator, and in the ensuing chaos of the gun battle we peace the fuck out into the garage

HOWEVER for some reason we couldn't escape from the first garage, there weren't any cars??? or if there were cars they were locked and we didn't know how to hotwire a car anyway

so we end up having to get out of the first garage, and we come back to the U junction, and the two cops are lying out in the street fucking wasted, i was freaking out pretty bad in the dream, but we head into the second garage and it's pretty busy, lots of cars coming and going

for some reason we don't ask someone for a ride or hijack a car, we're still being stealthy for some reason, and we decide that our plan is to hop into the back of a car when it's leaving so the predator won't see us. i get into the trunk of a car and it drives out of the garage and we leave the mall, and i'm like, "fucking sweet, i'm gonna live"

but all of a sudden the car stops, i'm like "uhhh wtf" and then the trunk pops opeN AND THE FUCKING PREDATOR PULLS ME OUT BY MY THROAT AND STABS ME IN THE BELLY WITH HIS WRIST BLADES, THEN PULLS HIS FAST BACK AND SWINGS AT MY FACE TO DECAPITATE ME and that's when i wake up thrashing in bed screaming [/spoiler]

Brent I notice you do your o-lifts the day after quite hard squat and deadlift sessions.
Don’t you find that the fatigue from this really effects your o-lifts?
I am doing TM where I do o-lifts on the recovery day.
And I lose a lot of kilo’s on my o-lifts just because I am still very sore and tired from my volume day.

Randle, from what it sounds like, you just give too much of a fuck. Sometimes you just have to go hard, bro. Just keep in mind that someone out there is always training harder than you. There are probably things that you absolutely hate about this guy. He posts pictures of himself shirtless on facebook. With a fitted cap sitting crooked on his fucking head. He has never competed or trained anyone but he posts advice on message boards as though he is an authority on training. He does the oly lifts the day after he deadlifts. He deadlifts 5×5, with a rounded back, and straps, and is absolutely an ego lifter, because often he will forgo the last few sets of 5 and just work up to a single so everyone in the gym will see how strong he is with 495lbs on the bar. For accessory work he does rear and lateral barbell lunges, and he touts Bulgarian split squats as being equally effective for leg development as back squats. Then later that night when he goes to the same bar that every other useless fuck head in his town goes to on Friday nights he’ll put on a polo that’s a size too small so people will “know” that he lifts weights. People will ask him advice on working out and he will tell them about the dude from leangains.com and Lyle McDonald, even though he wouldn’t have the discipline for IF or any sort of controlled eating. Also, he’s in a fucking talentless band and all his songs are about generic tragic life experiences that he hasn’t even fucking had. Are you really going to let this pussy fucking bitch train harder than you? Because I sure as FUCK am not.

On Wednesday I ate a dry rubbed pork chop with 3 scrambled eggs topped with salsa verde and a sweet potato pre-workout.

Snatched up to 205lbs, cleaned 245lbs for a double and jerked it, c+jed 265lbs, pulled 325lbs x 6 double overhand no hook. Did some chest supported rowing for a quick pump, headed out. PS no bumpers in this workout.

Didn’t feel particularly good this workout, was hoping to snatch a bit more (i.e. power snatch 190lbs for a double or something) but the strength was not there. I felt ok about cleaning 245lbs for a double, but I’m pretty sure I could power clean that for a double and will be trying to hit higher squat clean doubles from here on out, and the grip PR in the deadlift is ok.

I’ve had to improvise a few times due to a work schedule that alternates or is sometimes unpredictable, but I generally try to deadlift heavy later in the week, and then have at least 2 days of rest before next week’s squats.

I couldn’t tell you how upset I am that I’m repping 225lbs, i.e. typical high school football benching, on the fucking bench press. I’m 25. I want to kill myself.

Lacrosse ball tack-and-stretch to anterior delt with internal rotation, lateral distraction combined with driving shoulder into back of socket and external rotation, couch stretch, hip flexion bias with external rotation, double lacrosse ball to t-spine. ALSO, tack-and-stretch to suprapatellar pouch was pretty fucking good, I was in a lot of pain targeting VMO but also felt much smoother when I was done.

Benched 225lbs for 8, 7, 6, with the first 3 reps of each set paused. Finally hit 8, tack on another rep over the next two weeks hopefully to get a solid 10. Shoulder’s been feeling a lot better recently. Something that also helped is I used to just go in and rep it the fuck out as fast as I could in attempt to get to a PR # of reps, and I was sometimes bringing the bar down or pressing it up with non-ideal mechanics i.e. elbows flaring, bar hitting different parts of my chest on different reps, uneven extension of the arms, etc. Tonight I was a little more methodical and broke each rep down separately, probably helped a bit.

I’ve told Justin this story, but a while back, I had front squat 3×5 in a workout and probably PRed. I got into my car and drove home, and when I tried to get out of my car, I immediately collapse to the ground because both my quads cramped pretty significantly, and wouldn’t stop when I tried to get up and walk to my apartment. One of my neighbors saw me struggling and staggering away from my car, and asked if I needed assistance.

“Nah man I’m good, just cramping up. Should have drank more water!” I was trying to play it off like it wasn’t a big deal, because it wasn’t, but at the time it was a life-or-death struggle to continue stumbling bow-legged to the steps up to my apartment.

My neighbor again asked me if I needed help with my gym bag when he saw me hunch over at the bottom of the steps, mentally steeling myself to begin a slow crawl up to my place, and I thanked him and told him I was fine.

Point being, I looked like an asshole who was pretending that he trained legs too hard.

Anyways, had another episode of that today, front squat 335lbs x 4 for a 1 rep PR and got out of my car to check my mail, immediately fell back into my car as both legs cramped and spent the next 5 minutes furiously stretching to relieve the cramping, which was pretty constant and made my entire leg ache, and chugging down a bottle of water while my neighbors drove past wondering what the fuck the douche Asian was doing.

Uh mobs I did this week, IR stretch, double lacrosse ball to T-spine, deep hip flexion with external rotation, couch stretch, rolling anterior capsule, and if you haven’t taken a look at the latest mwod check it out, I like this one a whole fucking lot. Right shoulder is still inflamed and recovering from a strain, hitting internal rotation with tack-and-stretch was pretty good for it.

Been eating one sweet potato a day as far as diet, lots of steak, and I have confirmed a 4 egg omelette with 4 strips of bacon and a microwaved yam + butter + brown sugar to be a legit pre-workout meal given enough time between eating and lifting. Also supplemented with a 50g pro/50g waxy maize shake 1 hour before training.

On Thursday I benched 245lbs for three triples and low-bar back squat 405lbs x 5.

Today (Saturday) I did pretty well, power snatched 200lbs x 1 for a PR, snatched 215lbs x 1 without much trouble, then finished off with max rep power snatches at 185lbs, got 4 + 1 squat snatch. Hammering internal rotation on the right shoulder has been paying off. Also, I was not using bumper plates for these.

Cleaned and push pressed 225lbs for two singles, on both of those attempts I was wanting to at least double 225lbs but I suppose this was too ambitious for a movement that I rarely train. Cleaned 255lbs and stopped without jerking, felt too heavy to safely jerk.

Front squat 335lbs x 4 for a 1 rep PR, then 315lbs x 4 and 3.

Push pressed 195lbs x 4 out of the rack, was hoping for 5 but couldn’t seal the deal. Possibly if I’d done these earlier I could have done a lot better, but I didn’t know if I’d have time to do them at all and needed to get my front squats in for sure. Just decided to do a set when I figured I’d have enough time to get a set in (gym closed at 8pm).

Pulled 365lbs x 9 double overhand hook grip <– this wasn't challenging for the dohg at all and pain scale was pretty low. Pulled 385lbs x 4 afterwards, 5 would have been nice but I understand that opening with 365lbs x 9 will produce some fatigue for me.

DB benched for a quick pump, then finished off with weighted rounded back back extensions, 90lbs for 19.

Pretty happy with today's workout, did some good snatching and pulling and got a little swollertrophy in.

Rolled on anterior capsule and pec minor as well as external rotators, IR stretch, couch stretched.

Pre-workout was a sweet potato with brown sugar and butter with a 4 egg omelette folded with 4 strips of bacon, baby spinach, and a small tomato. Possibly not enough carbs, I think this will be pretty good pre-workout with a 50g pro/50g waxy maize shake.

Benched 225lbs x 7, 6, 5 (first 3 reps of each paused). Baffled as to why I’m not hitting 225lbs x 8. I went for 8 on the first set because 7 was hard, but not “next rep will be failure” hard. 8 stalled at lock-out, I had omitted a spotter for all my benching this workout and had to rack the bar into the second pair of j-hooks, the ones that were below the top pair.

“Why didn’t you ask someone to spot you, Brent?”

When I was benching the other two guys in the free weight area were 1.) a reasonably jacked Asian who definitely had a fob accent, he absolutely could get fucked. I’d punch my mother in the face, full force, before I’d ask him for a spot. 2.) A 50 year oldish dude who, if he didn’t have a personality disorder that required medication, was at the very least a huge fucking douche. Wears a bandana and elbow pads all the time, and you can tell from his labored grunts while doing bent-over rear delt flyes that he works real hard. I’m fucking done.

Related story to this, the first time I c+jed 275lbs without bumpers at a globo gym, there was another jacked Asian, probably Chinese-American and white-washed, that was training a lady friend of his, who was white. “Why does their race matter, Brent” because I’m a fucking bigot, get fucked. Sumo dumbbell deadlifts with partial range of motion, “targets your glutes better,” partial dumbbell squats, I couldn’t have been less impressed with this fuck head. My motivation for that session was how much I wanted to set his Mazda 350Z on fire. I’m fucking done.

High bar back squat 355lbs x 9, 5, 5. I think with more than 5 minutes rest between sets I could be doing more reps on the 2nd and 3rd sets but my hearing is still tinny and distant when I get under the bar for these and I’m hitting “fuck my life” difficulty and lactic acid levels at rep 3. I went after 10 on the first set but fucking pussed out, I got stapled and the bar went to the pins.